The Deliberate Creative

In 1914, 28 men embarked on a dangerous expedition to the South Pole. Led by experienced Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, the men faced more peril that they could have ever imagined. In the middle of Antarctica their ship sunk. No one on the planet knew their situation. Shackleton was determined to get all the men home alive. Defying all odds, he succeeded. His unconventional leadership approach saved the men and even 100 years later there is much we can learn from Shackleton. This episode shares Shackleton's story and the leadership principles relevant to leading any team.

• Hear the story of Shackleton's incredible journey to the South Pole
• Learn Shackleton's leadership principles and why they are relevant today

• Book: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
• Book: Leading at the Edge by Dennis Perkins
• Book: Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from a Great Explorer by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell
• Blog Post: Five Elements of Shackleton's Leadership

Learn how to use space as a tool to enhance creativity within your team and your organization. Mike Marcus is the Assistant Director of Creative Placemaking & Property Development at The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design. In this episode, he teaches us about creative placemaking, explaining what it is and how it can help your team develop and implement creative ideas. He shares three components of creative placemaking and how you can being using with your team.

• What creative placemaking is and how it might impact you and your team
• Three tips for implementing creative placemaking and making your organization more creative

Mike Marcus serves as Assistant Director of Creative Placemaking & Property Development at The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design. He is responsible for leading the organization's property development initiative, The Hive AVL – a creative campus for making, learning and enterprise, and its related programmatic element, the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. The project includes multiple University partners and economic development organizations.

Mike is passionate about cultivating vibrant communities and robust creative economies. He is particularly interested in the intersection of urban planning and economic development through the lens of the arts, local manufacturing, design and the maker movement. Mike is part of the core organizing committee for CreativeMornings Asheville and sits on the board of the Asheville Design Center. He holds a graduate certificate in Creative Placemaking from The Ohio State University, Columbus and a Bachelor's Degree in City & Regional Planning from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California.

• Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design
• Email Mike - [email protected]
• Mike Marcus on LinkedIn
• CreativeMornings
• Book: Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration
• Book: Spaces for Innovation: The Design and Science of Inspiring Environments

Immunity to Change is a powerful tool to help us figure out what is preventing us from making the change we want in our lives, whether it is being more creative, exercising more, or finishing a project. Something is creating the "immunity" that is stopping the change. In this episode, Immunity to Change facilitators Amy Climer and Jen Wilson explain how Immunity to Change works and how to use it. You will walk through creating your own map to lead you to understanding yourself and hear an example of how to use the process. The process helps individuals, teams, and organizations make the changes they want to make.

• How to use the Immunity to Change process to facilitate change in your own life.
• Big assumptions you might be making and how to test them
• How to use the Immunity to Change map to uncover what has been preventing you from changing.

Jennifer Wilson is a consultant, facilitator and coach. She founded her company, New Leaf Coaching and Consulting LLC, in 2006 with a mission to help people in progressive, mission-driven organizations work well together so they can do amazing work in the world. She has consulted across the U.S. and beyond in diverse settings, from wilderness backcountry to NYC boardrooms, with organizations such as Sierra Club, NRDC, Open Society Foundation, REI, Esperanza Unida, and Wisconsin Public Radio. Jennifer co-founded two urban high schools dedicated to serving marginalized youth.

• Jen Wilson's website
• Book: Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy!

How we present our ideas affects the audience's reactions. When presented poorly creative ideas get shot down or ignored. In this episode, you'll learn a five-step process that will lead to effective presentations. The steps apply to simple, informal presentations or high-stakes keynotes. Whatever the context, former actor Jack Hannibal shares how to design and deliver presentations so you can get the results you want.

• How you can design your presentations to get positive responses from your audience
• The five step model to present your creative ideas
• The three most common hurdles in delivering presentations

A professional actor since childhood and teacher of acting for over 20 years, Jack knows firsthand what it takes to command a room with authenticity and presence. He is also good at showing others how to do the same. Jack is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City where he studied acting under Sanford Meisner. He has performed on and off-Broadway and has appeared in numerous TV programs and commercials. In Los Angeles, he taught acting privately and at UCLA Extension. Jack holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master's in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University. He lives with his wife in Asheville, NC, where he maintains a private psychotherapy practice and is on the teaching staff at Asheville Insight Meditation.

Jack's extensive experience as a performer, teacher of acting, psychotherapist, and meditation teacher, makes him a presentation coach second to none. His clients include: Children's Hospital Foundation, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Sports West, Fox Big Ten, MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, Sony Electronics, Panasonic Avionics, Parsons Engineering, GemStar TVGuide, Quest Diagnostics, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and The Martin Agency.

• Presentation and Presence Website
• Jack Hannibal's website

Managing up, also called leading up, or followership, is a critical skill at any level of an organization. In this episode, educational consultant Julie Koenke talks about the nuanced skill of managing up. She explains how it can help you better work with your supervisor and help your organization get the results you are aiming for.

• The definition of managing up
• What managing up looks like with your supervisor
• Why being a "good soldier" isn't what your boss is looking for
• How managing up helps all levels of the organization succeed

Julie Koenke is the Director of the Great Lakes College and Career Pathway Partnership. Prior to this role, Julie worked as the Director of Secondary Programs and Pathways Partnerships for the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) in Wisconsin. She led MMSD's efforts to implement personalized pathways with a Linked Learning approach across 16 middle and high schools. Julie has 17 years of experience developing public/private partnerships. She has developed numerous partnerships between public schools, non-profits, higher education institutions, businesses, foundations, and industry in order to bolster student achievement and success. During her 17 years of service in MMSD, she developed partnerships that increased participation in after school programs, increased high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, access to and achievement in advanced and rigorous coursework for students of color.

Julie has over 20 years of experience as a youth worker, community educator, professional developer, and district administrator working towards systems level change in the City of Madison, WI. She brings an expertise in developing effective collaborative teams, change management, and a passion for creating equitable schools and communities. She has a Master of Fine Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts and an undergraduate degree from University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point.

• Harvard Business Review article about Managing Up

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

There is no script for life and there is no exact script that will help you be more creative. In this episode, Amy interviews Chris Esparza about the power of Improv and how to work without a script. The skills and principles of Improv, borrowed from the world of theater, can help you deal with the ambiguity of leading creative teams.

• What Improv is and how it can help your teams be more creative
• The three principles of Improv and how to use them with your team
• The importance of preparation versus planning
• How Chris was able to take five weeks off from his full-time job to dive deep into Improv in Chicago

Chris is a listener-in-progress, leadership learner-educator, applied improvisor, and accidental runner. He currently serves as the Associate Director at the University of Oregon's Holden Center for Leadership & Community Engagement. He shares both administrative and programmatic responsibilities across the center, including coordination of the LeaderShape Institute, Catalyst, and our Strengths-Based Leadership programming. Recently, he has been active in infusing principals of improvisation into the center's curricular objectives, facilitating workshops and trainings across campus on adaptability, ambiguity, change, creativity, group development, and power and status.

Chris grounds his work in experience with leadership development, group facilitation, diversity and inclusion, and applied psychology. Chris attended Stanford University for his bachelor's degree (Psychology) and UC Santa Barbara for his master's and doctoral work (Counseling Psychology). Outside of work you might find Chris running on the riverside paths in Eugene, OR, eating lots of Mexican food, or participating in the world's largest treasure hunt (geocaching).

• IO Improv Theatre
• Book: Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madsen
• Book: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Book: Everything's An Offer by Robert Poynton
• Book: Training to Imagine by Kat Koppett
• Applied Improvisation Network
• International Leadership Association
• University of Oregon Holden Center
• Chris Esparza on Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn

Are you overwhelmed with too many ideas? Do you have too many ideas and need to figure out which are the best? In this episode, learn how to select the best ideas. How to use criteria to manage and rate your ideas. Then, learn to test the top ones before doing a full-blown implementation. Try the weekly challenge and let us know how it goes!

• How to select the best ideas to implement
• The most common criteria used for selecting ideas
• How to prototype and test the top ideas

Learn how the simple five-letter word "might" can help you be more creative. Might is a mighty word! When you change the format of your questions it leads to impressive results. This episode explains how to make a small shift and generate new, creative, original ideas.  What You’ll Learn Why "might" is a mighty word How [...]

The post Episode 60: “Might” is a Mighty Word appeared first on Climer Consulting.

Learn how the simple five-letter word "might" can help you be more creative. Might is a mighty word! When you change the format of your questions it leads to impressive results. This episode explains how to make a small shift and generate new, creative, original ideas.

• Why "might" is a mighty word
• How to change the way you ask questions to generate new ideas
• How to increase the sense of possibility with your team, your family/friends, and your self

• Episode 5: Creative Problem Solving – Ideate